Marketing

Darren Stevenson is a Ph.D. Candidate in Communication Studies at the University of Michigan. His work examines privacy, personal information, and trust, with applications for business strategy, innovation, marketing and advertising, and information law and public policy.

The DC Circuit upheld a decision of the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) prohibiting Verizon from continuing some of the company’s practices in trying to retain customers switching from its phone service to a competitor’s VOIP service. When a customer decided to leave Verizon for a competitor, Verizon would get a notice because it had to transfer the customer’s phone number to the new service. Verizon would then offer the customer incentives to stay, such as discounts and gift cards. The FCC banned the practice and the court upheld the FCC’s decision, reasoning that the FCC’s action survived the weak standard of Chevron deference because the FCC had rationally interpreted the relevant statute.

Jon Hanson and Douglas Kysar coined the term “market manipulation” in 1999 to describe how companies exploit the cognitive limitations of consumers. Everything costs $9.99 because consumers see the price as closer to $9 than $10. Although widely cited by academics, the concept of market manipulation has had only a modest impact on consumer protection law.

"Each year at the Privacy Law Scholars Conference, organized by the UC Berkeley School of Law and the George Washington University (GWU) School of Law, scholars submit papers that are in progress, to be workshopped with a facilitated discussion amongst attendees. The idea is to bring together the academic privacy community with those working in industry, advocacy, law and government to further privacy thought leadership and facilitate dialogue.